The present invention relates generally to image processing systems and, more particularly, to an image processing system for enhancing and analyzing a digital image.
As robots and other automatic machines are introduced into industry the need for image processing systems to guide these machines has greatly increased.
For example, a robot arm may be assigned the task of sorting nuts and bolts on a moving conveyor belt. The image processing sort must supply the information relating to: (1) the position of each object; and (2) the identity of each object. Also, because the belt is moving and the objects themselves are to be moved by the arm, this information must be continually updated. A typical digital image processing system acquires frames at a rate of about 30 per second. Each of these frames typically has dimensions of 512.times.512 pixels. Accordingly, in one second a huge amount of data, 7,864,430 pixels per seconds, must be processed.
In existing image processing systems, this huge amount of data precludes the analysis of the frames at the rate that the frames are provided. While the frames are provided every 1/30 second, the processing system information provided by the system is typically updated only every second.
The robot arm, or other automated machine, requires correctional feedback to compensate for positional changes. The speed of operaion of the automated machine depends on the frequency of updating the information supplied by the image processing system. Accordingly, a great need exists for an image processing system that updates information at the rate that image frames are provided to the system.